"Consumers increasingly biased when it comes to buying strawberries"

The strawberry season is in full swing and just before Easter, demand was satisfactory, explains Ralph Bogers from CLTV Zundert. "Up until now, strawberries have had a pretty good Spring," he says. "Last year was, of course, a top Spring but it has not been as mad as that. Kilograms are arriving a little earlier, and volumes are also increasing."

"There is now plenty of domestic supply available, and export is slowly under way," he explains. "We notice that Dutch and Belgian supermarkets are selling well which shows that they like to trade with domestic product. I have the feeling that customers are increasingly biased in their purchasing behaviour. When our product is on the shelves they sell better than those of Spanish or other origin which is, of course, a good sign."

Small dip
According to him there was a small dip in prices last week. "This is because numbers increased and they all need to find a market. The average price fell to around 2.80 a kilo. This is not low, but also not a top price. We recently managed nearly 4 Euro a kilo which is a nice price, but we have not forgotten that we are nearly at Easter. I expect that it will not rise further this week and what happens after Easter depends on many factors, in particular the weather. Volumes are increasing and export will move into top gear and it is difficult to estimate what will happen with the prices."

Ralph says that there are reasonable volumes of early heated greenhouse crops. There are also a number of crops which have finished or near the end. Clery is at the end and Sonata is just about finished. The early heated greenhouse crops are in their better weeks in terms of harvest volumes. It averages around a kilo per square meter. In the coming weeks harvesting from cold greenhouse and poly-tunnels will begin again."

For more information:
Ralph Bogers
CLTV Zundert
Molenstraat 155
4881 GD Zundert
Tel: +3176-5972241
Fax: +3176-5972053
www.cltvzundert.nl